A couple of websites have come out recently that when combined with each other make a perfect storm of potential outcomes for geographers and historians alike. Whilst some of them are not that old, they may be well known, but it is the combination of all three that has the greatest potential. The first of these tools that I became aware of was http://dipity.com a grate time line tool that enables a user to create a linear set of events from pretty much any resource at their disposal on the internet. Then came http://scribblemaps.com which enabled a user to overlay their own content onto a Google Maps page. Here the user can create shapes that might illustrate the phases of development, the alignment of troops on the battlefield overlaid on the modern topography. In addition the user can then add their own text and images to the map. The final tool in the triumvirate of tools is the newly launched http://historypin.com this tool encourages users to upload, link historic images of locations and places into a map and pin them to their actual location on the map. These images can then be compared against the current Google Street view image (where possible) in order that a comparison or an evolution of images can be compared against the present.
Now using the different tools a user can not only put objects in a 2D space of a map but represent that same data in a linear time line and embed all of that information into one source such as a wiki. Great for cause and effect and making links between information in space and time. A perfect storm of tools.
I ran a VC session into Haast School last week. The session was aimed at community and business leaders harnessing web2.0 technology to communicate and collaborate. The special impact here being that Haast being so remote from the rest of New Zealand has a special need to harness this kind of technology, in order to keep the community alive and connected to the rest of the world, whilst keeping the community viable and vibrant in Haast. It was a good session and from my end was facilitated by the good guys at Gen-i in Auckland, on the 17th floor to be exact. Once I had been set up the staff melted away and left me to it, I had the Pukeko room to myself. Whilst there I took the liberty to run a speedtest on the network connection I was using for my Internet access, not the VC connection. This is the result that it returned:
The speeds were stellar! Just imagine what a school could do with that kind of bandwidth, imagine the collaboration opportunities, the multi-media rich potential of such a resource. I went to share this information on Twitter, but was blocked. I tried Skype, but was blocked. I wanted to use Team Viewer, but was blocked. What an irony, stellar internet performance in a business environment where sending e-mails and browsing filtered internet are the norm. By comparison look at the kind of performance a school that I work in gets on their Telecom connection 5.5km from the exchange and an apathetic at best indifferent,help desk who have taken 63 calls to get some kind of attention to the fault evident in these stats. The school and the staff are bursting to use the Internet to its fullest potential but with this kind of connectivity find they can’t. As the crow flies this school is 10km from Gen-i and their blistering connection. This has all the echoes of a story I posted in 2008 http://dakinane.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/limping-along-in-the-internets-slow-lane/ How many other schools, not even in remote situations like Haast, but in urban settings like the school below, in New Zealand get results like this?
The video here is a prototype, but the infrastructure shown to use it is low tech and therefore accessible to schools. Just imagine the educational collaboration possibilities with such technology. Judging by the article this came from it might not be that far away either…
As I work in schools with a wider and wider range of teachers, my ideas for the layer cake are starting to crystalise. I was working in a school recently and the teacher I was with had an “Aha!” moment. She had made a pedagogical, if not that then a conceptual breakthrough about e-learning and how it might look and be delivered within the space she teaches in. It is her quote that is the title of this post. I am still working on the full variant of the Layer Cake post, but do not want to release it too early, until I have fully ironed out the wrinkles myself. However, in parallel with the Layer Cake e-learning methodology that I am developing I am also developing support materials in the form of templates, resources and rubrics etc to support teachers once I am not working with them. I shall be devoting more time to this entire endeavour in the coming days and weeks, but work is un-relenting at the moment, which is good! It is also clear that there is a desperate need for retro fitting the new paradigm/pedagogy/methodology, call it what you will that is e-learning to good many schools and teachers alike. All new inquiries welcome.
Time and again over the last couple of days the presenters and keynote speakers have all moved away from the shock of the new type approach, i.e. new tools, toys and tricks, the bling of ICT and peeled this away to ask us to look at empowering students and teachers alike. It is as though the last several years have been a process of removing the layers of an onion to get at the heart of what e-learning is. This is an interesting point, because in recent years we have liked to precede words with i or e to give them cachet of techieness or educool.
Today has been a continual mantra of its not the tools its what you do with them. Sylvia Martinez started the morning by challenging us with the statement that if what we are currently doing with ICT (the purchasing lots of kit model) and it is not working, then do not do more of the same. We need to look at how we are using the ICT tools in our class and ask what is effective. For me this was a bit of an ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ moment. If just putting equipment in a room and concentrating on training staff how to use the equipment is not having an impact on learning, then we need to concentrate on the e-learning model.
This brings me neatly to the point where I can start to allude the much longer post I need to write. For many teachers there is much confusion over what this e-learning thing is. To which I am going to say from now on, drop the ‘e’ and you will have a clearer picture. Now lets pick a tool identify its educational potential and use it well, once this has been mastered, we can add another and so the L4YER C4KE can be made.
Written offline - 7 April - Hotel has no Internet!
After a grueling day one at ACEC2010 with two keynote presentations and seven breakout sessions, a common theme has made itself abundantly clear. The key to e-learning success is not based around increased capital outlay on the latest and greatest technology, rather successful integration should be based on a rather more mundane and fiscally more attainable target, sound pedagogy. However, therein lies the problem. Schools are finding it easier to purchase new technologies that promise to deliver the e-learning nirvana of integration rather than attack the pedagogical issues of delivery. Alan November reminded us of this early in the day, saying that we need to ensure that the plan for teaching and learning that currently exists within schools is the right one, before we layer on the technologies, which can then mask the inappropriateness of the underlying pedagogy.
Whilst this message is not new to me, it has made me think all day long about the approach that I should be taking in a school as a facilitator. I am working on a post as alluded to in a previous post based on a conversation that I had whilst flying over the Melbourne and reflects the kinds of conversations that I have regularly in schools as a facilitator. The conversations are loosely based around the following kind of statement: “Well we have purchased the equipment, now what? What is e-learning and how can I make it work in my class?
I have spent the last couple of days, three actually, creating training videos for a client. In total I have created 11 tutorials, covering 8 skill sets necessary for their staff to master the basics of the software programme they have invested in. The structure of each tutorial is the same. In the first instance the skill is demonstrated with an audio track and on screen prompts. Then the tutorial becomes interactive, it is a complete repeat of the first half but the audio track, mouse animation and onscreen prompts disappear. The user has to move stepwise through the video emulating what has just been shown to them. All correct moves are confirmed and all incorrect moves are supported with prompts.
I departed the supertanker in August of 2009 and joined Team Solutions on 6 month contract. That short but happy and productive contract has now ended and I am now out on my own as in independent facilitator. Next year is already looking to be a full and productive year. I will be working in many schools and also for some commercial clients too. I am spending the summer organising my computers and resources to meet the needs of the many different schools that I am scheduled to be working in. I am blocked out for specific schools on specific days for all but a few days of the entire academic year.
I will be at Learning @ Schools 10 and have submitted a couple of proposals to the organisers and am waiting to hear if I have been successful again. I am also intending to go to Ulearn10 in Christchurch, but that is much later in the year.
I am looking back at the last year and am very pleased with the journey that has brought me this far. As the year closes, I am now eagerly anticipating the challenges of the coming weeks and months.
ToonDoo a cloud cartooning utility which I was singing the prasies of at Ulearn09 and have been using in classes here and in the UK for the last couple of years has just added a new service, specifically aimed at educational institutions who want to use the site but are concerned about privacy etc. The new service is called ToonDooSpaces. It is free to sign up and trial for 15 days, but after that and if you want to continue, there is a charge. However as the books in and cartoon strips are embedable and always have been in ToonDoo then maybe your blog or Wiki will offer you the walled garden security that some are seeking. For those of you that want ToonDoo and privacy, this new variant offers you a wider range of privacy but it will cost.
